[asterisk-users] building a phone

[Wilton Helm]

> I assume that the relevant application requires some non-trivial CPU power. I would 
> exclude e.g. a 486-based systems. 

I'm not sure that's the case.  The industry has gone in the direction of throwing lots of silicon at a problem, often as an excuse for poorly written code, sometimes in an interpreted language.  There are a number of high integration CPUs out there that I suspect could do this sort of thing.  I develop device controllers for a variety of industry needs.  They tend to have Ethernet, RS-232, sometimes 1 Mb/s synchronous communication. G711, quarter VGA color LCD with touchscreen and control loops running at about a 1 ms rate.  The entire code takes less than 256K in C.  My choice of processor is the DStni Ex (made by Lantronix and sold by Grid Connect) which is a high integration, high speed 186 core with two 10/100 Ethernet Ports and 256K of RAM on it in addition to the usual assortment of other stuff.  The above required platform adds three support chips (one being the LCD controller).  The CPU can run over 100 MHz.  Memory accesses take one clock and typical instructions take two or three.  Cost is in the $10 to $20 range for the chip and power consumption is around 1 W (the LCD backlight takes more than that!)

I'm sure there are several other comparable platforms out there, such as by Digi International.  The Geode is a good candidate as are some VIA chips, if one wants to use protected mode x86.  The biggest thing for this is don't even consider Intel.  For most of their life they have not provided cutting edge solutions for embedded use.  Most of their stuff consumes too much power.  And most importantly, they are targeting the very volatile, short lived PC market.  By the time you get an embedded design up and running and reach market penetration, you won't be able to buy the chip any more.

Wilton
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